Sentimental Favorites

Let it not be said that Santa Paula is lacking in historical awareness.

It’s a coveted location destination for Hollywood productions in search of small-town Americana or old-fashioned ex-urban scenery. The train depot, though not used for its original purpose since the train routes changed, is pristinely preserved.

Fond reminiscence is also the sentiment of the moment at the Union Oil Museum, itself a landmark, 100-year-old structure in town. The exhibits often relish and reexamine local history, but rarely with the intense focus of the current show, “Art and Life: The 60th Anniversary of the Santa Paula Art Show.”

The basic idea was to dig back into the Santa Paula city collection and elsewhere to find art that appeared in the first annual art show in 1937, held in the Chamber of Commerce building. Detective work was required to uncover the work, and 17 of the 22 original artists were found.

Complementing the art are artifacts of the day, including a gleaming, vintage Harley-Davidson, plopped in the middle of the gallery. Among the other paraphernalia are the original guest book for the art show and an archival living room tableau with a radio and comfy chairs.

In terms of the art, local history is again often the main attraction. Closest to home, Lawrence Hinckley’s painting of 10th Street gives a second-story perspective to the site of the museum itself, with bulbous ‘30s model cars casting Edward Hopper-esque shadows, but minus the Hopper-esque despair.

Hinckley was an important figure in the region’s art scene, having started the Artists’ Barn in Fillmore, which ran for 25 years. Douglas Shively’s broad view of local history touches on a Native American village, covered wagon, a train and buildings.

Picaresque charm is the reward in the “Chinatown, 1943” by Arthur Burnside Dodge, who worked for the Los Angeles Times for many years.

The winning painting of that first art show was the pleasant landscape “Evening in the Canyon,” by Robert Percy Smith, who was to become the city’s gardener. He obviously had an eye for nature, as also seen in “Horses on High Sierra Trail.”

Robert Clunie’s “Last Rays, Sierra” is another ode to the visual splendor in the mountains to the north--at a time when getting there wasn’t as easy as it is today.

There is a portrait of the famed Santa Paula artist Cornelis Botke, taken in 1938 by Horace Bristol, the photojournalist who died last summer and whose own recognition skyrocketed in the last 10 years of his life.

With both Ventura County artists gone, the photograph now assumes new meaning, especially as an example of dialogue within the local arts scene.

In one of Botke’s paintings, we see the town herself as a quiet, idyllic alcove beyond looming eucalyptus trees. It’s still possible to get a similarly romantic, relatively untrammeled view of the little city, if you block out the franchises on the edge of town.

Perhaps Santa Paula’s resistance to change in Southern California, home of rampant development, has encouraged the town’s own warm relationship with its past and the existence of a show like this. The exhibit is a window on a world that hasn’t been altered much in 60 years.

BE THERE

“Life and Art in 1937,” through Jan. 4 at Union Oil Museum, 1001 E. Main St., Santa Paula. Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday-Sunday; 933-0076.